"I'm still good meat!"
Live, die, repeat. Just under eleven years ago, when Edge of Tomorrow came out, the consensus was that it was the best video game movie not actually based on a game, so effectively did it capture the accumulation of knowledge and skill that comes from an ever-escalating number of runs. What Bong Joon-ho is interested in is who's holding the controller, and how much they really care about their avatar's ordeal when every reset brings so…
"It's time to let old things die."
We look out to the sky and dream of legends, of one day growing beyond our own fears and doubts and becoming something bigger. Meanwhile, our heroes stow themselves away, hardened by the bitter truth that, no matter how high you ascend, the things that haunt you never truly leave. So now what? What do we do with these stories of great people when we find out they're just as scared as we…
Thus far, my experience with the icy cinema of Michelangelo Antonioni has been, well, icy. In a good way, to be clear; I've loved every one of his I've seen to date, and all for similar reasons. He brilliantly bursts modern life's bubble, and captures the listless discord that trickles out like nobody else. The ennui suffocates, and I always go back to thinking in terms of temperature, because usually, the coldness of his work cuts like wire. In Blow…
"I am not dying to Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch."
The Russo Brothers present: a literal evil theme park movie in which Chris Pratt braves the apocalypse to defend a warehouse full of Cabbage Patch Kids and He-Man merchandise. Deeply bleak film, somehow an entire step down from Cherry and The Gray Man, and the fact that such a thing is even possible is the most damning thing I can say about this. Actually no, because inexplicably, the best…
Pinocchio loves hot chocolate and hates facists: film of the year!
A gorgeous, heartfelt adaptation of the timeless folk tale, one that, to my mind, stands above them all by remembering exactly what Pinocchio as a character represents: the enduring power of a father's love. It's another stellar take on Del Toro's pet theme-the power of disobedience in the face of authority, but I'm hard pressed to remember another one of his films pairing that with such winning sweetness. I'm…
For basically his entire career, Todd Haynes has been depicting how social standards box in individuals whose lives are far too complex for the world's reductive view to ever do them justice. May December, arguably his most introspective film to date, turns that gaze onto tabloid sensationalisation, the questionable sincerity of the method actor, and finally, to the strange difficult people left by the wayside in the process. Haynes is dealing with sensitive material here, and his approach is defined…
